ZABADANI, Syria ? The residents of this pretty mountain resort town still seem dazed with disbelief that they have somehow succeeded in driving out the Syrian army, 10 months after they first rose up to demand change.
It was here that the government led by President Bashar al-Assad made what appeared to be a startling concession Wednesday. After negotiating with the town?s elders, the army agreed to withdraw from Zabadani, as well as from the adjoining town of Madaya, leaving a swath of territory effectively, if precariously, in the hands of the protest movement and rebel soldiers fighting in the name of the Free Syrian Army.
Quite how or why it happened ? and whether the calm that has descended will last ? are matters of debate. Some here credit the fight put up by the rebels, while others say that an Arab League mission to monitor the violence appears to have pressured the government into backing down.
But during a visit Saturday by some of the Arab League monitors, residents could not hide their joy that Zabadani has, at least for now, become what they are hailing as a ?liberated city,? perhaps the first since the armed rebel force began taking shape in the fall.
?It?s similar to Benghazi,? said Suleiman Tinawi, a sergeant who defected from the army and joined the rebels eight months ago, reflecting a widely held hope that Zabadani will serve a role similar to that of the eastern Libyan city from which rebels launched the war that toppled Moammar Gaddafi, with the help of NATO air support.
?But it?s not the same,? he said. ?We can?t get weapons, and we don?t have help. We need a no-fly zone.?
The monitors? visit offered a rare glimpse into the increasingly chaotic Syrian uprising, which has evolved into an armed insurgency that many fear could spin out of control and become a full-blown civil war. On Saturday, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported that 14 people had been killed when a string of explosions struck a convoy carrying prisoners in the restive northwestern province of Idlib.
Zabadani is just 20 miles outside the capital, Damascus, which has so far remained mostly untouched by the protests. Yet here, against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains, rebel soldiers of the Free Syrian Army wander in the streets alongside activists and protest leaders who previously dared make contact with the outside world only via secure Internet connections.
No guns were on display during the monitors? visit, but defected soldiers and activists readily admit that they are armed and fighting.
?The people and the Free Syrian Army have become one hand,? said Amjad Khan, 31, who showed the monitors the damage inflicted on his home by an artillery shell fired by regular army soldiers days before the cease-fire was announced. ?They are cooperating together.?
At an abandoned Syrian checkpoint strewn with casings, a resident pleaded with the monitors to ask the Arab League to send weapons.
?Each one of us who has a weapon is going out to defend our homes, and if we had enough weapons we could do more,? he said. The monitors took notes.
Zabadani is by no means the first town in Syria where protesters and residents have effectively seized control. But it is perhaps the only one where the government has been obliged to observe a cease-fire, giving the residents respite from what they said were daily shooting and artillery attacks.
The survival of this oasis remains in doubt, however. The army retreated about five miles but is still ringing the town. The mountainous terrain appears to give the advantage to a guerrilla force that clearly has the support of the local populace. But the residents are effectively cut off from the outside world, unable to travel even to nearby Damascus to buy provisions.
?We are liberated, but we are under siege,? local activist Anas Burhan said. He suspects that the government agreed to the cease-fire only to mollify the Arab League, which is meeting Sunday to decide whether to renew the monitors? mission for another month.
The Syrian opposition wants the League to refer the crisis to the United Nations, to secure a tougher international response to the Syrian government?s crackdown, something Damascus is anxious to avoid.
?After Sunday they will start bombing again to regain their reputation,? Burhan said. ?They only pulled out their tanks and hid them because of the Arab League.?
Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=56dc900cbfeb97c6c0828d6d8af7c8d7
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